[22] “When healthy caterpillars are placed within reach of a silkworm that has been destroyed by the Botrytis, they, too, contract the disease, and at last perish.”—_Chambers’s Journal_, October, 1845. [23] A species of _Polystrix_ is affected, whilst alive, with a parasitic kind of fungus, called _Sphæria_, which grows out of it, and feeds upon it. [24] Several of the French surgeons have given recitals of cases where, on removal of the bandages from sore surfaces, they have found a collection of funguses growing upon them, generally about the size of the finger (Lemery); one of them adds, that having reapplied the wrappings, a second batch came out in the course of twenty-four hours, and this for several days consecutively. [25] For an accurate description of these funguses, the reader is referred to the excellent work of Mr. Berkeley. [26] These, beautiful, but fleeting as beauty’s blush, generally perish within a few hours; but I have seen some which, after a potting of 2000 years, retained their original hues unblemished, for they had been potted with the town of Pompeii, and are preserved with the other frescoes upon its walls. [27] The _Mitrati_ are not a very numerous class, of which the _Morel_ may be taken as the type. [28] The _Cupulati_, so called in consequence. [29] _A. piperatus._ [30] _A. procerus._ [31] _Agaricus comatus_, in allusion no doubt to which Plautus says of the Lord Chancellor of his day, “Fungino genere est, capiti se totum tegit,”—that his wig was so long as to hide his whole person. [32] The _Nidularias_ do so. [33] The surface is rough with elevated papillæ, the structure fibrous, the flesh softly elastic, the colour bright red, looking like the tongue in the worst forms of gastro-enterite, with which its cold clammy surface when touched offers no correspondence. [34] _A. micaceus._ [35] Thore. [36] _Agaricus narcoticus_, Batsch, Fascic. vol. ii. pl. 81. [37] _A. alliaceus._ [38] _A. cinnamomeus._ [39] Fries. [40] Bolton. [41] Persoon. [42] Micheli. [43] These last, placed in a wineglass, over a sheet of white paper, frequently disperse the seminal dust over a ring of twice the natural dimensions of the Agaric.